


039 "Jarvis"

by wheel_pen



Series: Iron Man AU [39]
Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fish out of Water, My Pepper is different, Pre-Iron Man, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-12
Updated: 2013-04-12
Packaged: 2017-12-08 07:33:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/758754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony, Pepper, and Rhodey attempt to create an all-powerful house computer network. Somehow, poetry, acronyms, and a history of computer programming become intimately involved. “I could live on binary, baby. Feed me more of those ones and zeroes!”</p>
            </blockquote>





	039 "Jarvis"

**Author's Note:**

> 1) My Pepper is very different from canon Pepper. Her personality/origin is very different; to separate her from canon Pepper I've given her a new last name and a different hair color.
> 
> 2) The bad words are censored. That's just how I do things.
> 
> 3) Stories are numbered in the order I wrote them, which isn't necessarily the order in which they occur. The timeline is Chapter 2 of story 031 “wet.”
> 
> I wrote this series after the first Iron Man movie came out. It's very AU but I hope you'll enjoy it anyway. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play with these characters.

            So you may have been wondering about Jarvis. I know I’ve mentioned him a few times and I assume you understood those references in context. I haven’t mentioned him nearly as much as I could, however, because I didn’t want to confuse anyone. But now I’ll tell you how Jarvis came to be.

            Of course Jarvis wasn’t really a _he_ ; it was an _it_ , a computer program. But _he_ seemed more appropriate because I gave him a male voice, and he’s just got too much personality to be an _it_. I had been toying with the idea of creating a central computer to run the house for a long time—it was pretty much the ultimate geek dream, to have a voice-controlled computer do things at your command. Cool things, I mean, like search the Internet, put on some music, and provide security. I knew I could create the software to do it if I just sat down and focused on it long enough. But it took a while to even _get_ to that point, because I had to rewire the whole house first, make sure everything was tied into a central location. Rhodey and I worked on it in our spare time—it would have gone a lot faster if I’d hired professionals, but I just didn’t want to trust the job to strangers. There were people who would have paid an obscene amount of money to get a hidden camera or data tap installed in the house of Tony Stark, or some kind of master code that would give them remote access to the house network. So I figured it was just safer to work on it myself, along with an electronics expert that I completely trusted, and that way there would be no questions.

            When we were finally nearing the end of _that_ project, I sat down to write the code that would bring my artificially intelligent “butler” to life. I could go into a lot of detail at this point about the different theories involving artificial intelligence and my revolutionary and brilliant contributions to that field. But I doubt most of you would understand them, so I’ll skip that. The results you can see for yourself, and they’re pretty fantastic (if I do say so myself).

            Pepper came down to the basement bearing food one day, while I was sitting on the couch pecking at the four laptops I had lined up on the coffee table. Her primary job at this moment, she seemed to feel, was to keep me fed and occasionally showered while I devoted my time obsessively to writing this program. “I’ve brought you something to eat!” she announced cheerfully, sitting down on the couch beside me.

            “G-------t!” I responded. This comment was not directed at Pepper but rather at one of the computers.

            “Is something wrong, sir?” she guessed.

            “Bugs,” I muttered, scrolling through my latest subroutine looking for the errors that caused it to fail when I told it to run. “Bugs bugs bugs bugs.”

            Pepper nodded sagely, having become used to these semi-incoherent ramblings over the last week or so. “Why don’t you take a little break and eat something?” she tempted.

            Just to paint a picture for you, imagine me sitting on the couch in the basement in torn jeans and a stained tank top, my hair standing up in every direction, and a kind of wild, bloodshot look in my eyes. I wasn’t really as dirty as most programmers would be on this sort of noble crusade, because Pepper made sure I showered at least once every twenty-four hours and changed into fresh clothes as well. But I didn’t have time to bother messing with my hair when I came out of the shower, or woke up from a nap in an uncomfortable position on the couch. I also didn’t have time to eat like a civilized human being and bits of my previous meals for that day could easily be found on my clothes and the couch. Sorry if this is kind of gross, but given how much time I generally spend on my appearance, you _know_ I was really into this computer thing. Besides, Pepper was always creeping around picking up the dirty plates and empty pop cans, so it wasn’t nearly as disgusting as it could have been.

            Getting me to turn away from the screens long enough to eat was always a challenge. In this case, I completely ignored Pepper’s suggestion; sometimes I at least grunted.

            “You really ought to eat something,” she persisted. “It’s been six hours since your last meal.”

            “Hmm,” I replied, hauling one of the computers onto my lap. “Hmm hmm hmm.” I tapped urgently at the keyboard, attempting to fix the bug.

            “In fact, I think you should take a little break altogether.” She might have said something along those lines before; I wasn’t really paying attention. Pepper was exceedingly patient with me during this time, probably because she realized what a righteous cause it was all for.

            Suddenly she said something that captured my attention in its entirety. “Pepper, did you—did you just call me by my first name?!”

            She smiled at her clever plan. “I called you ‘Tony Stark,’” she corrected, “but I whispered the ‘Stark.’”

            “Oh.”

            “Come and have something to eat now.”

            Well, since she had temporarily punctured the fog of code and algorithms I was surrounded by, I thought I might as well take a short break. Sometimes a brief respite was beneficial for solving a tricky problem, such as the one I was currently facing. “Well, okay. What did you bring me?”

            She held up a tray. “Brownies!”

            “Yes!” I responded with enthusiasm, plunging in. When I had created my masterpiece I would go back to eating things that contained the occasional vegetable (pickles counted as vegetables, right?) but for now I required a high concentration of sugar and fat to power my brain. Pepper was happy to oblige. “Oh, G-d, they’re still warm,” I sighed blissfully. “Did you—you didn’t _make_ these, did you, Pepper?” G-d knew what she’d been up to in the rest of the house this whole week.

            She shook her head. “I got them from Panicci’s and warmed them up in the oven a tiny bit, just the way Mrs. Panicci said to.”

            I snorted. “Pepper, Mrs. Panicci’s been dead for forty years. The store is just named after her.” I could tell she didn’t believe me. “You got the girl we always get, right? Whose nametag says _Ling_? Does she look Italian to you? Seriously, she’s, like, Chinese.”

            “Obviously,” Pepper retorted calmly, stealing a bite of brownie, “’Panicci’ is her married name. So only her husband has to be of Italian descent.” I rolled my eyes but didn’t bother arguing—there was no point to it. “I did _try_ to make some brownies first,” she went on conversationally.

            “Really?” Pepper was not what you would call terribly domestic. A mostly unburned bag of microwave popcorn was counted as a big achievement for her. (And don’t get me started on trying to _explain_ popcorn to her.) Not that I was any better myself, of course, but then why _should_ I be?

            “I found a box of brownie powder at the grocery store,” she revealed, “and the instructions said all I had to do was add water, and bake!”

            I grimaced. “Box brownies? Where you only have to add _water_? Pepper, those brownies would s—k. There’s, like, twenty bakeries within five miles of the house.”

            “Well, I thought it might be fun to try it once,” she shrugged.

            I was not convinced. “Well, don’t try to pass any of your experimental food crafts off on me. I require professional baked goods.” She nodded with resigned agreement. “So what happened, anyway?” I asked curiously, licking the last of the brownie off my fingers. “With your ‘just add water and bake’ brownies?”

            “It turned out to be _far_ more complicated than that,” Pepper replied ominously. “Did you know that you have to bake something at a different temperature depending on the _shape of the pan_?”

            “You’re kidding.”

            “No!”

            “Whoa.” The mind boggled. “Okay, well, I could see a difference if one pan was, like, 2x2x4, and the other was, like, 16x1x1,” I conceded.

            She shook her head. “No! You have to cook something in a _round_ pan differently than something in a _square_ pan of similar size. I read the directions very carefully.”

            “That’s insane,” I opined, swigging a fresh Coke. Nothing like brownies and cola to give you that instant infusion of sugar and caffeine that was so necessary at… at whatever the h—l time it was. “Although,” I added, “brownies should really only be baked in a _square_ pan. They’re not like cookies, you know.”

            “I know,” Pepper agreed. “But they still had _directions_ for round pans. It was all very confusing.” She paused. “But everything’s been cleaned up now. And I bought a new square pan. And spatula. And the stain came right out once I found the proper solvent. The smoke didn’t bother you, did it?”

            “I’m sealed in,” I reminded her. “You could burn the house down and I wouldn’t notice.” Pause. “But try not to.”

            “Of course.”

            I wiped my fingers on a semi-clean dish cloth and turned back to the computers. “Well, thanks for the snack, Pep. I’m gonna go back to work now.”

            She didn’t hop up and scuttle away like usual. “How is your project coming?”

            I gave her a sidelong glance. “Er, well, I’ll figure it out,” I replied vaguely. “Look, Pep, appreciate your interest and all, but I gotta get back in the zone here.”

            “Perhaps I could assist you.”

            “Oh, you do,” I assured her. No doubt she was feeling neglected, rambling around the big empty house while I was down here toiling away. “Look, you can take… this!” I put a wadded-up tissue on the brownie tray she held (evidence that even I, Tony Stark, occasionally sneeze). “That would be a _big_ help.” She looked underwhelmed by this assignment. “Honey, look, I’m in the middle of a _thing_ here,” I began, hoping she would be _difficult_. “Promise, when I’m done, we’ll do some fun stuff again.”

            “May I touch your keyboard, sir?” she asked persistently.

            “If only that were a euphemism,” I sighed. “Okay, I’ll humor you. Take a look at the CODE, Pep. Let its arcane wonder dazzle you.”

            “Hmm,” she remarked thoughtfully, scrolling through the lines. “Hmm hmm hmm.” I wasn’t sure if she was just imitating me or if this response was somehow inherent to computer programming.

            “There’s a bug somewhere, is the thing,” I explained, trying to use small, non-technical words. My head was swimming with the jargon I’d been reading in the programming manuals spread out around me and on the geek-tastic message boards displayed on one laptop—I was not above (anonymously) consulting others for help. “I’ve been working on it most of the day. I sent it to Rhodey, but he’s been too busy working or sleeping or something else stupid to really respond.”

            “You should end this command line with a semi-colon instead of a colon,” Pepper told me, pointing to the text on the screen.

            I blinked. Then I stared. Then I quickly made the change, because that’s a really embarrassing, dinky mistake for a programmer to make. Then I turned back to Pepper. “Do you—do you speak Ada?” I asked in a hushed tone.

            Pepper continued to peruse the code. “I’m familiar with a number of computer programming languages,” she confirmed, and my heart skipped a beat. “I find their syntax easier to understand than most human languages.”

            “I’m not surprised.”

            She reached the end of the subroutine and nodded. “Your decision to cluster the command codes according to a tri-variable algorithm is, I think, a unique solution to the problem of orphaned disambiguations.” My eyelids fluttered and I swayed a bit on the couch. “Mr. Stark?” Pepper asked in concern.

            “Sorry, I just had a nerd-gasm,” I told her, trying to clear my head. Forget the talking computer that ran the house. _This_ was the ultimate geek dream: a hot woman sitting on the couch in the basement talking code. Fifteen-year-old me would have been—well, let’s not go there. “Would you like to help me with this, Pepper?” I asked her eagerly.

            “Perhaps I could make some small contribution,” she allowed modestly.

            I handed her a laptop. “Then let’s get coding, baby!”

            Sometime later. “Pepper, you are so f-----g brilliant. Will you marry me?”

            She gave me a look. “I believe you’re suffering from low blood sugar,” she diagnosed. “I’ve been neglecting your nutritional needs.”

            “I could live on binary, baby,” I asserted, though at the moment I was having trouble sitting up straight. “Feed me more of those ones and zeroes!”

            She set her computer aside and took mine from me without a fight. “Let’s go upstairs and get some food.”

            “Wow, upstairs, huh?” I commented as she took my hand and let me to the elevator. “I haven’t been there in years. I wonder if it’s changed much? I hope it hasn’t gotten all touristy, it was so quaint.” Partly I was joking. But I had also been drinking a _lot_ of Coke. And Red Bull.

            I sat down at the kitchen counter and rubbed my dry, tired eyes while Pepper rooted in the fridge. “We have leftover chicken tetrazzini,” she reported, “and leftover pork lo mein. And a little bit of the meal you got at Mexicali.”

            I contemplated the choices. “Throw it all in a big bowl and microwave it,” I decided. This was pretty much how Pepper viewed the world of edible items anyway, so she didn’t object. I watched her prepare our meal from a slightly sideways perspective, my head resting on the counter. “Do you know who Ada is named after?” I said randomly.

            She looked at me questioningly over her shoulder. “The language is named after someone?”

            “Well, yeah. I mean, regular spoken languages aren’t,” I clarified quickly, wondering if I had gotten myself tangled up in a mire suddenly. “Like there’s no ‘Mr. Bulgarian’ out there who invented Bulgarian.” D—n. Pepper had that look on her face like she’d never thought of this before, and now that she had, she was confused. “Never mind,” I decided, cutting my losses.

            “No, I would like to know who Ada was named after,” she insisted, taking the bowl of food out of the microwave.

            “Well, it was named after Ada Lovelace,” I began, sitting up as Pepper set the bowl on the counter and started mixing its contents. “She was the daughter of Lord Byron and is considered the world’s first computer programmer.”

            “Who is Lord Byron?” Pepper asked, handing me a fork.

            I dug into the Italian-Chinese-Mexican casserole. “He was a poet in the, uh, a long time ago. Like, the 1800’s.” History wasn’t my strong suit. “Back when poets were like rock stars.”

            “Oh. What were the rock stars like?”

            “Um, poets.” Pepper nodded like this made sense. She was good that way. “Like, he drank and did drugs and got into fights and had lots of sex. And he was obsessed with his sister and made his girlfriend wear a mask with the sister’s face on it when they had sex. I saw that in a movie once.” I didn’t want to sound too judgmental, since I was after all the guy who brought home a lot of leggy blonds in sky-high heels. “Also, they have tons of statues of him in Greece. He’s a national hero there or something.” Pause. “I don’t know why. He was British. I hope it’s not the sister thing.”

            “I was not aware humans had achieved computer technology at any point in the 1800’s,” Pepper commented, picking some noodles out of the bowl.

            “Well—kind of. I mean, this guy had an idea for a mechanical device—powered by a steam engine, I think—that would perform arithmetic operations. An early calculator, basically,” I told her. “The analytical engine. Charles Babbage. And I guess he and Ada were buds, and she wrote some codes to make his machine calculate stuff. But the device never actually got built, which just shows you how totally awesome Ada Lovelace was, because she wrote a program for a machine that didn’t even exist yet. She was, like, two hundred years before her time.” I could relate. “In the ‘80’s the Department of Defense named their new standardized computer language after her.”

            “I was not aware of this,” Pepper admitted with a frown. I wasn’t sure if the frown meant she didn’t believe me or if she just keenly felt the gaps in her education. Well, Harvard was no MIT, that was for sure.

            I smirked and dangled a noodle into my mouth. “’She walks in beauty, like the night/Of cloudless climes and starry skies/And all that’s best of dark and bright/Meet in her aspect and her eyes.’” Pepper appeared slightly frightened as she stared at me across the bowl. “That’s Byron. Poetry?” She looked relieved that I had not, in fact, started spouting random words in a delirium born of long hours in the basement. “Guess you’re not much of a poetry girl, huh, Pepper?”

            “Most poetry is extremely abstract and highly dependent on metaphorical language,” she pointed out. Pepper had difficulty with metaphors and their ilk. “Some of it is nice when it rhymes, though.” She paused. “You may continue with your recitation, however,” she encouraged politely.

            I shook my head. “Sorry, that’s all I know of that one,” I admitted. “That’s usually all it takes to get to second base with the poetry girls.” I searched my brain for something else vaguely poetical as Pepper nibbled a piece of chicken. It was dark out, with a full moon lighting up the ocean outside the large window. I wasn’t really sure what day it was anymore. A quick jog on the beach sounded nice after being cooped up in the house for days—but I quickly quashed that thought when I realized Pepper wouldn’t come with me. Not a big fan of sand. Or water, for that matter. ‘Many waters…’ For some reason that phrase popped into my head, part of the results of my poetry search. Oh, right.

            “’Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm;/for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave./Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame./Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it./If one offered for love all the wealth of one’s house, it would be utterly scorned.’”

            There was silence in the kitchen. I cleared my throat. “Sorry, I guess that doesn’t rhyme.”

            “Is that more poetry by Lord Byron?” Pepper asked.

            “The Bible, actually,” I replied, standing up. “Real panty-dropper. I’m gonna go for a quick jog on the beach, Pep. Clear my head. Don’t stay up on my account, okay?”

           

            With Pepper’s assistance I made considerable progress in the programming, enough that I was able to set up a rudimentary voice-operated system throughout the house by the end of the week. Well, I think it had been a week. The days had blended together a bit.

            “Computer, play ‘Every Breath You Take’ over the intercom,” I attempted.

            “ _Specify_ ,” came a mechanical voice from the ceiling speaker nearest me.

            I blinked, looking at the lengthier output on the computer screen in front of me. “It’s a music file,” I said aloud, somewhat frustrated. “Drive C, Tony, My Music, uh…” I scrolled through the musicians. “Police, The. _Synchronicity_. There, _that_ file. ‘Every Breath You Take.’ Play it.” There was a pause, then the sounds of our song emerged—from the tinny speakers of the laptop. I sighed. “Route the song over the intercom system,” I repeated.

            “ _Specify_.”

            A box popped up listing every intercom in the house. “ _All_ of them,” I insisted. Another pause. Then the intercom in the basement squawked to life, squeezing out a _very_ distorted version of the song. “Computer,” I summoned through gritted teeth, “optimize the song track for the audio output of the intercom system.”

            “ _Specify_.” A music-mixing program appeared on the screen, bearing an intimidating array of virtual dials, sliders, and sine-wave graphs.

            I sighed. “Cancel music.” No change. “Turn off the d—n music!” The intercom went silent.

            Well, obviously I had a lot farther to go in the ‘intelligence’ part of artificial intelligence. No one said this was going to be easy, though—if it were easy to create a computer program that interpreted vernacular commands using a processor that relied on logical reasoning as well as inferred cues, well, two college kids at Berkeley would already have invented it and used it to illegally share music somehow.

            “That wasn’t you singing, was it, sir?” Pepper asked, entering the workshop.

            “No. That was our backwards child attempting to follow my commands.” I made a noise of frustration and flopped back on the couch. “He seems to have good intentions, but I fear we’ll have to lock him in the attic whenever we have company.”

            Pepper blinked at me. “Have you considered writing a metaphorical language translating program, sir? I know I would find one helpful sometimes.”

            I shrugged. “I’m working on it. This guy is so dumb as it is, though, I’m not sure how much good it will do.”

            I sat up so Pepper could sit down on the couch, then leaned back to put my head in her lap. “Now, Mr. Stark,” she chided lightly, resting her cool hand against my cheek, “you’ll hurt its feelings if you talk about it that way.” I didn’t have enough energy at the moment to decide if she was serious. “Maybe the computer would be easier to deal with if you gave it a real name.”

            “What’s wrong with ‘Computer’?” I asked.

            “It seems rather impersonal.”

            “It’s what they use on _Star Trek_.” What more definitive source could she ask for?

            “I think we should come up with a nice name for it,” Pepper persisted. “To help it construct its identity.”

            “Pepper, have you been reading self-help books again?” I accused.

            “Let’s call it something nice,” she continued cheerfully. “Like ‘Chocolate.’ Or ‘Salmon.’”

            “Pepper, I hope you never have to name a child,” I judged harshly. “Or even a hamster, for that matter.”

            “How about ‘Coco’? That’s shorter.” Clearly she wasn’t listening to me.

            I decided to humor her, as my computing muscles were sore. “And what would ‘Coco’ stand for?”

            She looked down at me blankly. “Stand for?”

            “As an acronym,” I clarified. Or not, given her expression. “Well, you can’t just give a computer some random name because you _like_ it. It has to stand for something.”

            “Where is that rule codified?” she asked suspiciously.

            “ _Everybody_ knows it,” I told her, as if it should be extremely obvious. I hoped that would camouflage my lack of citations to back up my facts. “It either has to be an acronym, or a really awesome word that is somehow symbolic of the program. Like if there was some kind of dual intelligence mode you could name it ‘Gemini’ or if it was a lethal defense program you could name it ‘Scorpio.’ Basically it ought to sound like the codename of a Bond villain’s scheme to destroy the world. Or be an acronym. Or better yet, both.”

            Pepper digested these requirements. “How about ‘Goldfish’?”

            “Good _G-d_ , Pepper!” I sighed. “I think our digital baby must take after _you_.”

            “I think ‘Goldfish’ could be a codename,” she tried to convince me. “I think goldfish look sinister and secretive. Especially the ones with the bulging eyes.”

            “Electronic… Interlinked… Organized… Interface,” I tried, determined to demonstrate the proper naming scheme for her. “What do those initial spell?”

            “Eee-iii-oh-iii,” Pepper attempted.

            “Well let’s not use _that_ ,” I decided quickly. “I don’t want to sound like I’m about to burst into a yodel whenever I call the computer.”

            “Computer Optimized Communication Organization,” Pepper suggested.

            “Which spells… COCO,” I realized. “No.” She pouted, which for Pepper meant a slight frown. “It has to be something _cool_ , Pepper. Maybe ‘Coco’ would be a cool name for a baby if you were sixteen and part of your hair was pink, but it’s _not_ cool for my brilliant house computer.”

            “You _are_ working on that metaphor translator, aren’t you, sir?” she prompted dryly.

            The doorbell ringing saved her from my acerbic reply to her dig about my creative, expressive language skills. “Go answer the door,” I instructed unnecessarily. “It might be Rhodey. He said he might stop by later today. I think it was today.”

            Pepper dumped me on the couch—a bit rudely, I thought—and went to answer the door. She returned a few minutes later with Rhodey and a snack for us.

            We greeted and settled in. “So how much progress have you made?” he asked, eager for an update. “What module are you working on now?”

            “Oh, I’m taking a break from programming,” I replied dismissively. I waited until he lifted his drink to his lips. “Pepper and I are trying to think of a name for our baby.”

            “I want Coco,” Pepper added defiantly.

            Moments later. “Hey, thanks, man, that was a really awesome reaction,” I assured Rhodey, patting his back. Pepper discreetly wiped up the spilled liquid from the floor. “I wasn’t expecting _that_ level, thanks.”

            Rhodey glared at me, coughed, and finally spoke. “It really _hurts_ squirting Coke out your nose,” he groused.

            “You just have to practice more,” I replied. “That stinging tingle goes away after a while.”

            “I _assume_ , upon reflection, that you’re talking about the computer program,” he added, still dabbing at his nose with a napkin. “Trying to name it?”

            I returned to my reclining position against Pepper. “Yes. I’ve already explained the rules of computer naming to her—you know, acronyms, Bond villain codenames—“ Rhodey nodded. This was understood among those of us in the field. “But she keeps coming up with seafood and desserts. Lame!”

            The three of us vainly attempted to think of a decent name. We went through the whole zodiac, deadly predators (“Anteater?” offered Pepper), various mythological systems, even classic sci-fi characters. Acronyms were a little tougher, but we were finally forced to attempt them again.

            “Strategic… Technological… Automatic… Retrieval,” suggested Pepper. “That makes _STAR_.”

            “Fuzzy Unicorns Cuddling and Kissing,” I shot back with irritation. “Stop naming things like a ten-year-old girl.”

            “Automatic Sensing System,” Rhodey announced pointedly. “We could name it after you.”

            “Technological Operating Network… What starts with Y?” Pepper wondered, stuck.

            “Oh, you’d call the computer Tony, but not me,” I observed, stung. “Forget that!”

            I don’t know if you’ve ever had the opportunity to think of an acronym for something, but let me tell you, it messes with your head. Everything we heard we started finding the acronym for.

            “More soda, sir?”

            “Em-essss,” I tried. “No, that’s like the disease.”

            “NTLTD,” Rhodey followed speculatively. “Intle-tee-dee? That’s kind of fun.”

            “I’m not prancing around the house saying ‘Intle-tee-dee’ like some kind of twee British eccentric,” I insisted scornfully.

            “TBE,” Pepper pointed out. “Tee-bee. That’s fun to say.”

            “TFTS. Tee-eff-tee-ess,” said Rhodey.

            “Oh my G-d, I’m going insane!” I declared, reaching the end of my rope.

            “Iggie!” Pepper announced excitedly.

            “Stop it!” I ordered. “Look, I’m gonna lower my standards, okay?” This was what I had been reduced to. “It doesn’t have to be cool. It just has to make sense on this plane of existence. We’re not trying to name a stealth jet armed with nuclear warheads”—the ultimate in coolness, really—“just a very intelligent system for running the house.”

            “JAVIS,” Rhodey said suddenly.

            “What?”

            “Just a Very Intelligent System,” he repeated, a look of excitement starting to spread across his features.

            Okay, it wasn’t _that_ fantastic. It wasn’t as fantastic as—well, obviously if I could have thought of something more fantastic, I would have used that. But at the time it seemed good enough, especially considering that the programming part hadn’t been the height of awesomeness I had hoped for. “You know, we used to have a butler called _Jarvis_ when I was little,” I remembered vaguely. “Old wrinkly British dude. Very dry. Like a stale cracker.”

            “Stale crackers are soft and moist,” Pepper corrected.

            “Hush, don’t ruin my metaphor,” I instructed.

            “’Jarvis’ would be cool,” Rhodey asserted. “Just A _blank_ Very Intelligent System…”

            “Random?”

            “Rhetorical?”

            “Rich?”

            “Robotic?”

            “ _Really_ ,” Pepper put in. “Just A Really Very Intelligent System.”

            Rhodey and I looked at each other. Pepper seemed to think this was exceedingly clever. “Well, we can work out exactly what it stands for later,” I hedged. “But Jarvis it is. Let’s get cracking on this next level of command recognition.”

            Obviously there was a lot more work that Pepper, Rhodey, and I had to do before Jarvis as we know him was created. Personally I feel _someone_ went a little overboard on the whole ‘snide British butler’ shtick. But aside from that, I’m happy to admit that Jarvis has been extremely useful over the years and, including all the tweaks and upgrades I’ve given him, probably my greatest technological achievement.

            Aside from a suit or two.

* * *


End file.
